


Childhood (is Endangered)

by happinesssdeceit (crescenttwins)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Code Geass, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Child Soldiers, Gen, Guns, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 08:58:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenttwins/pseuds/happinesssdeceit
Summary: Lira prompted a Code Geass!AU: Yuri is the leader of a rebel faction determined to topple the current regime (maybe in Russia, probably the head of the current regime is Victor, do with this what you will) using a mystical power that allows him to give each person one inviolable command so long as he makes direct eye contact. Otabek is his classmate turned second in command, one of the few who know Yuri’s identity beneath the mask he wears to lead.





	Childhood (is Endangered)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inelegantly (Lir)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/gifts).



> Prompt here at [Bonus Round 1!](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10964754#cmt10964754)
> 
> Please read all the tags before continuing! Also a warning that Victor is 100% the antagonist here, please stop reading if that isn't your cup of tea.

Platitudes are useless things, muttered from the hearts of men who hide beneath wealth and bloodlines. Poverty makes men faster than any other: poverty of spirit, poverty of courage, poverty of strength. 

When Otabek's homeland finally crumbles beneath the onslaught of the New Russian Empire's mechas, he is young. 

Young enough that he is collected when Emperor Nikiforov drafts the men of Kazakhstan to flesh out the empire's army, an _experiment_ performed on a whim. The Emperor's eyes are sharp when he surveys them, the group of youths he has stolen from the ravaged country. He hums a cheerful song that sounds like a funeral dirge, and if Otabek had more courage he would bury his shiv in the irreverent man's back.

After ten days of darkness, broken only by the glimpses of sunlight through the seams of the transport, they drag all of them into a bootcamp run by a red faced man named Yakov Feltsman. The man has little humor for mistakes: he boxes their ears when they fail to finish their cleaning duties and yells when they slouch; they are deprived of dinner if they can not recite the New Russian Empire's oath from memory. One day a week they are thrown into a half constructed mecha suit, to see whether they are worth the investment.

Everyone has something to prove, in that room. And because they have little, they show it through their bodies-- the sweat they spill onto the warehouse floor, the lean muscle they pack onto starving limbs, the unnatural stiffness of their backs and limbs. During the many months they spend in the warehouse, many of the others leave, by their own choice or otherwise, and Otabek grits his teeth harder: less people does not mean less work. 

There is another boy who catches his eyes during the times he rests: at first because his hair is the nostalgic color of ripening wheat. But even after Otabek shakes off the sentimentality, he keeps his eyes on that boy: the boy with the soldier eyes. 

There are many young people in this camp, but there are no children.

....

The camp is broken up a few months later, when the number of people remaining can be counted on two hands. The Emperor does not see them in person, but sends a video that Yakov projects on a concrete wall.

 _It is unfortunate that your brethren,_ the recorded Emperor Nikiforov says, _did not share your courage and might. But for the children who persevered, I have a surprise!_ He claps his hands like a child. _Honorary citizenship for you all! Aren't I generous?_

Otabek very carefully does not look at the golden haired boy when he stands, fists clenched and a guttural sound coming from the depths of his small body. He is careful to keep his eyes fixed on the still smiling emperor when the boy is lunged at by men twice or thrice his size, when the group hits the ground with a sickening crack.

When he sees red in his peripheries, Otabek bites through his lip, and swallows the bitter blood so no one will view it as weakness.

....

It takes five years for him to see the boy again. 

He is exactly how Otabek remembers him, impertinence not smoothed away by time. He wears his hair longer now, cut to brush his chin, and his frame is still small and lanky. In class, he wears oversized clothing with sharp, if a bit questionable, patterns that catch the eye.

If Otabek looks closely, he can see the scar that hides beneath the boy's longer hair, can remember blood and concrete and the mocking voice of the Emperor.

And, well. Otabek lacks the courage to be a hero, but perhaps he can be a protector instead.

(Later, after they have met properly, they will watch the sunset together and be declared friends, because anything greater would be excessive, for their first proper meeting. Otabek will shape the name Yuri in his mouth carefully, a boon where he expected none.)

.....

Yuri is volatile. Otabek knows this, has known this for many years, and still it surprises him to find his friend like this. Masked and surrounded by a rebellious faction that has been rampant in the news recently.

"Back away, kid," one of the men tells him, a crowbar heavy in hand.

Otabek looks at Yuri, at the stiffness in his stance and the sharp glint of his eyes underneath the mask, and thinks, _friends_.

"I want to join," he says, spreading his arms out neutrally. 

"What do you have to offer, huh?" Yuri's voice is warped, made deeper by the mask he wears. Because of that growl, the news calls him the Ice Tiger of Russia, the mysterious leader of the most successful rebellion against Nikiforov in decades.

"I have some experience piloting a prototype mecha," Otabek offers.

Joining the rebellion is easy, in comparison to--

In comparison to most things, Otabek thinks. He keeps this in mind when his knuckles are torn and bloody, a bruising ache in his ribs. He doesn't stop until the other members looking at him with something like respect.

....

Yuri has a secret, a power given to him by a woman while he was lying on the concrete floor of that warehouse, waiting to die.

"The power to command men," Yuri says, proud. 

"I can only use it once per person," he whispers later, a weakness shown to his dearest friend.

"You will never need to use it on me," Otabek declares, fierce. He clasps Yuri's shoulder, eyes dark, and pulls him into a loose embrace, "but thank you for trusting me."

(Yuri thinks of all the commands that lie beneath his tongue, swallows them and lets them curdle in his belly.)

....

Otabek gets stabbed.

This is what Otabek remembers:

A man in a baseball cap who did not belong in their warehouse, who flinched at laughter and watched Yuri intently. He wore dark clothing but his build was familiar, as familiar as any fighter might be, and the man kept patting his pocket. After the general meeting ended, he stood and approached Yuri, walking with purpose. Otabek caught the first that was aimed at Yuri's face; he hit the man's chest hard enough to wind him, knocking him to the floor; the other members pulled the man up, pushing him to the door; the glint of silver in his peripheries; an accomplice, a member who Yuri _trusted_ ; pulling Yuri tight to his body, curling his back to the threat; pain, sharp in his back; pain, sharp in Yuri's eyes.

This is what Otabek does not remember:

 _Live,_ Yuri sobs through his mask, pinned to the ground (protected) by Otabek's weight. _Damnit Otabek, live._

....

Finally, it comes to this: 

A gun with one bullet, on the table. Yuri and Otabek in a closed room, the bright red sights of snipers high on their foreheads, their necks, their chests. 

The smiling visage of Emperor Nikiforov on the screen. "Only one of you will get to leave that room," he says, gently, "now who will it be?"

Otabek reaches for the gun, because it has and always will be Yuri who is the most important, but Yuri doesn't have to take those actions when Otabek can make them for him. He pushes the muzzle up under his chin, but his finger is locked, his muscles pulling sharply, and he-- 

He chokes, his arm straightening to point at the golden-haired boy, and he says, "What did you do, Yuri?"

Yuri smiles at him, eyes crinkling beneath the mask, and says, "Sorry, Beka."

....

 _The Hero of Kazakhstan_ , they call him, when they hear he eliminated the Ice Tiger of Russia singlehandedly. 

It aches like a gunshot in his gut.


End file.
